Getting a good start in life

"If expectant mothers know that exercise is not only good for them, but also may offer lifelong benefits of their babies, I think they will be more motivated to get moving," researcher Robert Waterland says. Buda Mendes/Getty Images
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - OCTOBER 27: Pregnant athlete (L) walks during the 5th Pao de Acucar Marathon Relay on October 27, 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Photograph by: Buda Mendes
, Montreal Gazette

Is the love of exercise the product of nature or nurture? No one knows for sure, but there’s little doubt that fitness runs in some families, as does the tendency to choose the couch over the gym. But is early exposure to an active lifestyle the key to a lifelong love of exercise or is it a learned behaviour that starts when the child is old enough to fit into their first pair of Nikes?

What we do know is that an appreciation for exercise is born from a variety of environmental and genetic influences including the exposure to exercise during childhood. But a new study out of the Baylor College of Medicine explored whether the love of physical activity is implanted even earlier.

The Baylor scientists, led by researchers Jesse Eclarinal and Shaoyu Zhu, selected mice who preferred spending the majority of the day on the running wheel and split them into two groups; one that had access to the running wheel before and during pregnancy and one that didn’t.

The active mice ran as much as 10 kilometres per night in the early part of their pregnancy, a distance that slowly diminished until the mice were walking or running about one kilometre nightly in the final days before giving birth. As a result their offspring were 50 per cent more active than the mice born to the sedentary mothers, a trait that carried over into adulthood.

“Although most people assume that an individual’s tendency to be physically active is determined by genetics, our results clearly show that the environment can play an important role in fetal development,” said Robert Waterland, senior author of the study and associate professor of pediatrics, nutrition and or molecular and human genetics at the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Centre at Baylor and Texas Children’s Hospital.

The Baylor study isn’t the first to explore how exercise affects the children of mothers who exercise during pregnancy. Several studies suggest that babies born to active mice and rats have a better metabolic profile and a reduced risk of Type 2 diabetes that extends into adulthood. There’s also a suggestion that offspring of mice who are active in pregnancy have healthier hearts and a reduced risk of breast cancer.

Waterland said he believes the influence of exercise occurs primarily in the last trimester of pregnancy, a critical period in the brain development of unborn mice and humans. And while studies among humans are fewer, there is growing evidence that babies born to mothers who exercise during pregnancy realize benefits similar to those reached in the rodent population.

Dave Ellemberg and his colleagues from Université de Montréal demonstrated a link between exercise during pregnancy and the brain development of newborns. They divided pregnant women at the start of their second trimester into an exercise or non-exercise group, with the active moms-to-be performing 20 minutes of moderate intensity cardiovascular exercise three times a week. When the babies were born, their brain activity was analyzed 8-12 days later with the children of active mothers demonstrating more advanced cerebral maturation as compared to the babies of inactive mothers. The results suggest a more rapid acquisition of speech and motor development among babies whose mothers exercised during pregnancy, which could in turn assist in their intellectual and social development

All of these studies are in marked contrast to the message prevalent just a few decades ago suggesting that exercise during pregnancy put both mother and baby at risk. More and more studies are not only refuting those claims, they’re suggesting that exercise is beneficial for mothers-to-be and the long-term health of their babies. On a wider scale, that means encouraging regular exercise during pregnancy could mean a healthier, more active society less susceptible to a variety of chronic health problems.

It should be noted that all of the studies used moderate intensity cardiovascular exercise, which includes running, walking, swimming and cycling at a pace that increases heartbeat and respiration. And while there may be health benefits from other forms of exercise, there is little proof that weight training or low intensity exercise like yoga offers the same benefit.

“If expectant mothers know that exercise is not only good for them, but also may offer lifelong benefits of their babies, I think they will be more motivated to get moving,” Waterland said.

It’s also worth stating that exercising during pregnancy is only the first step toward modelling an active lifestyle. Mothers who are active before, during and after pregnancy are providing not only a good example for their children but are setting them up to love exercise even before their feet hit the floor.

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"If expectant mothers know that exercise is not only good for them, but also may offer lifelong benefits of their babies, I think they will be more motivated to get moving," researcher Robert Waterland says. Buda Mendes/Getty Images
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - OCTOBER 27: Pregnant athlete (L) walks during the 5th Pao de Acucar Marathon Relay on October 27, 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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